


Interstices

by prototyping



Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: 2/3rds of an OT3 lol, But not quite, F/M, Fluff, OT3, Romance, aka two guys being bro enough to share a girl, canon AU, it was only a matter of time until i incorporated both ships into one lbh, without anymore bickering than usual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2019-05-22
Packaged: 2020-03-09 21:07:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18925039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prototyping/pseuds/prototyping
Summary: Brothers don’t always get along, or manage to share things with grace. Fortunately, Alisha’s skills as a mediator aren’t limited only to politics. [Mikleo/Alisha/Sorey]





	Interstices

“Seriously? Sorey, there’s _nothing_ to suggest that.”

“Well, yeah, if you’re too afraid to think outside the box a little. Hypothesizing never killed anyone.”

“No, but it wastes time, especially when it’s just a random guess.”

“It’s not random! It’s either from the Era of the Gods or after. One possibility’s just as likely as the other, statistically speaking.”

“History is about deduction, not blind probability.”

“And how much of history has been discovered because every scholar and archaeologist went with their first guess, huh?”

Mikleo made a short, exasperated noise as Alisha broke into a smile. Both young men were seated on her bedroom floor, facing each other with several open books spread between them. Mikleo was closer, his back against her bare legs as they hung over the side of the bed, and she felt his stifled sigh.

“I’m just saying, there’s plenty of room for speculation,” Sorey pushed. “Sometimes a little faith goes a long way. Don’t you think so, Alisha?”

“Don’t pull her into this,” Mikleo snapped.

“Why? Afraid she’ll agree?”

“I have enough of a headache for both of us already.”

Alisha chuckled into her hand as she leaned forward. “This is all far beyond what’s in the Celestial Record, so I’m afraid I must decline commenting. But I would say you both have good points.”

Mikleo tilted his head back and onto her knees, fixing her with a look. “You don’t have to pity him.” A crumpled piece of paper bounced off his chest.

“That’s enough commentary, Mikleo.”

Mikleo sat up and chucked it back at him, but Sorey deflected it with a swipe and a grin.

“At any rate,” Alisha continued, knowing how the two of them could get when they started butting heads, “perhaps you should sleep on it. You’ve hardly taken a moment to truly rest since arriving.”

Sorey made a slight face—she knew he was capable of talking well into the night about these things—but he didn’t argue, giving Mikleo room to answer with, “Good idea. I’ll hope he has some more sense in the morning, even though we all know how likely that is.”

They continued their debate as Sorey stripped down to his undershirt and shorts, and even after Alisha had changed into her simple sleeping gown. When she returned from her wardrobe, Mikleo was still rooted stubbornly in place and sounded like an exasperated school teacher repeating the same concept for the tenth time.

“And how, exactly, would that explain the evidence of seraphic artes? If those ruins actually originated from a later age, the architecture would reflect a rise in human influences.”

Without interrupting, Alisha placed her hands on his firmly folded arms—they relaxed immediately and he glanced at her, that skeptical expression softening—and gently tugged them away from his chest to start on his overcoat for him.

“Okay, but let’s assume the estimations for the end of that era are off,” Sorey suggested as he sat on the bed. “There’s only one record of—”

“You can’t just make an assumption every time you hit a contradiction,” Mikleo huffed. Alisha finished unzipping the front and moved on to his side-belts. “You’re more guesses than fact at this point.”

“Just humor me for a sec! If the numbers were off, that _could_ explain the discrepancy.”

Mikleo drew a deep breath as if to sigh, but held it. “...That would have to be a big discrepancy,” he said slowly, grudgingly. “A century or more.” He finally caught on to Alisha’s help and moved to shrug out of his coat himself.

“And if you consider the simplicity of the lettering system at the time, a mistranslation isn’t out of the question.” Sorey propped some of the pillows against the headboard and reclined against them, leaving room for the other two as he went on, “Being even one number off would have some big implications.”

Mikleo’s eyes narrowed in that way that said he was searching for a rebuttal, but after a moment he finally let out that sigh. “It’s still just a hypothesis. A shaky one, at that.”

“ _But_ it holds water.”

“I can’t immediately _dis_ prove it, but you’re far from proving it, either.”

“Good enough,” Sorey chirped. He took hold of Alisha’s hand as she sat beside him. “As long as it’s worth looking into.”

That seemed like a good opportunity to move the conversation along, so Alisha remarked, “I have an appointment at the castle tomorrow. You two should come along; the royal library might have the resources you’re looking for.” And they could, hopefully, put their squabble to rest one way or another. As much as she enjoyed talking history with them, or just listening to their discussions, they were capable of debating for hours when they took separate stances like this. Even she found their boyish rivalry exhausting rather quickly.

Fortunately she also knew how to appeal to them, and the suggestion worked. The prideful tension dissolved immediately, as it only could when born of a friendship as long-established as theirs—although Mikleo looked annoyed as he snatched Sorey’s discarded clothes off the floor to place them on a chair along with his own.

Alisha gave Sorey’s knees a gentle nudge and he parted them, allowing her to sit between them and lean back against his chest. She smiled as he hugged her middle, loose but affectionate. She held her hands out for Mikleo and a moment later he joined them, seated sideways to let her legs stretch over his lap while he leaned back against Sorey’s bent knee. He held her hand and ran his fingers lightly along her calves, earning an affectionate squeeze of her fingers.

“I’m glad you two make up so quickly,” she admitted. As big as her bed was, it would have been awkward sharing it if they were upset with each other.

Sorey gave a light shrug. “I don’t really see it as a fight. I think it’s good to have opposing opinions now and again.”

“A debate in itself isn’t bad,” Mikleo agreed. “Good mental exercise, if nothing else.”

Alisha chuckled warmly. “Have you always gotten along this well?”

“No,” they answered in casual unison.

“Pretty sure there used to be yelling involved.”

“And not talking to each other for a few hours.”

Sorey’s chest rumbled with a laugh against her back. “Gramps would really let us have it then, remember?”

Mikleo’s smile was small and distracted. “And he’d say there were a hundred better things for family to do than waste time squabbling.”

Alisha hummed, amused and touched by the visual. “That’s wise advice. It sounds like he truly had your best interests at heart.”

“He did,” Sorey agreed softly.

She didn’t have to see his face to guess his expression. She reached down and found his hand, lacing their fingers in a comforting motion, and was glad when he gently gripped back.

No words came to mind, none that wouldn’t sound generic or hollow. She genuinely regretted never meeting their father figure; she wondered what type of person had raised these two into who they were, how alike they all were. She wished she could thank him for his hospitality years ago, even—especially—if she’d been utterly unaware of him at the time.

“He taught us a lot, too,” Mikleo spoke up. He lifted his gaze to glance at the other two, his expression easy and one eyebrow arching. “Although a few things never quite made it through Sorey’s head.”

Sorey shifted his weight with a grunt. ”Are you still picking my manners apart?”

“I was actually referring to how impulsive and reckless you are. And loud. But since you brought it up, yeah. That, too.”

Alisha smiled at his tone, that casual and successful attempt at lightening the topic. It had taken her quite a while to pick up on it, but Mikleo was good at that: monitoring Sorey’s mood, saying just the right thing to nudge it in one direction or another. He had a subtle but effective tendency to keep Sorey’s head on straight, which had surprised her at first—she used to picture Sorey as the level-headed one, calm and open-minded to balance Mikleo’s cautious skepticism and occasional heated outbursts. On the contrary, Sorey was the emotional one; he just had a different way of showing it. He tended to downplay it, oftentimes internalizing it, and no one was quicker to pick up on that—and address it—than Mikleo.

She wasn’t sure if Sorey realized it or not, but it always seemed to work regardless. 

He tapped his knee against Mikleo’s back, the lazy force enough to make the seraph jerk forward slightly. “Says you. I don’t hear anyone else complaining.”

“They’re just nicer than I am.”

“Well, yeah. I could’ve told you that.”

The three of them continued to chat for a while, drifting between topics and saying less with each one, finally sitting in comfortable silence. The slowing of Sorey’s caresses along her side was the first sign of how late it was getting. Soon after Mikleo started to unravel himself from the pile, probably to claim his usual place in the bed, but Alisha gave his fingers a light tug—invitation, not indication—and he caught on. He moved over her and gently set his weight down, his head under her chin and his arms slipping around her to interweave his embrace with Sorey’s.

She combed her fingers through Mikleo’s hair, his cool breath playing over her throat, and turned to nuzzle the side of Sorey’s neck, who kissed her forehead lightly. Her heart skipped a pleased beat but she relaxed, utterly content between their comforting weights. 

They stayed as they were, silence and wandering hands, the occasional stuttered breath or small, pleased sound when a touch caught someone by surprise. She kissed Sorey, slow and simple, while her hands explored Mikleo’s back anew, and then she kissed Mikleo while her fingers interlaced tightly with Sorey’s. Her attention slipped back and forth between them easily, always attending and aware of both. Something as light and casual as this was simple, really.

They caught her by surprise when they each took to one side of her neck—Sorey’s mouth focused more on affectionate brushes and pressing smiles into her skin, Mikleo’s a little more shy in its fleeting, tender kisses to the same few places. Warm hands rubbed her shoulders, cool fingers gently worked her thighs and she hummed, slipping her fingertips beneath the edge of Mikleo’s shirt to trace lines in his smooth skin.

He pulled himself up to eye level and she met him halfway with a kiss to his mouth—light at first, and then deeper, slow and long, until her fingers curled tight in his shirt, until her breath was short from his kiss as much as being caught firm between him and Sorey.

Lying between them like this always made her feel satisfied in a way she couldn’t describe—warm, safe, free of every other role that didn’t involve lying here with them both in a comfortable, intimate tangle. The sensation sent a small shiver through her, and this time she pulled Mikleo’s shirt up to his shoulders—indulging herself with the soft curve and dip of his spine, his sharp shoulder blades and the subtle muscles in between.

She felt Sorey brushing her hair out with his fingers, attentive and unperturbed as the other two grew more heated and pushed against him a little harder. Alisha was the one to finally pull back, but slowly, kissing small, warm smiles to the corner of Mikleo’s mouth, and then hugging his neck as she dropped her head back on Sorey’s shoulder to kiss the curve of his jaw with equal attention.

When she settled back down against his chest, she saw Mikleo prop his temple on Sorey’s other shoulder, studying her with a warm look. She was used to it now, but she would never have imagined such an open expression on his face years ago.

With a small, quiet sigh Alisha cupped his cheek, even as she lifted Sorey’s hand and brushed her lips across his knuckles.

“I love you both,” she murmured softly. A touch of pink colored her face but her smile stayed, affectionate and earnest.

“Even though we’re difficult?” Sorey joked. She felt Mikleo tense briefly, but he held back whatever quip he was about to make.

She chuckled. “I wouldn’t say difficult. You’re just… lively, at times.”

“There you go, Mikleo,” he said brightly. “Whenever you say I’m being difficult from now on, I’ll just assume you mean lively.”

Mikleo looked as though he was barely resisting a roll of his eyes. “You take that optimism a bit too far sometimes.”

Sorey made a neutral sound as he reached behind Mikleo, tugging his shirt back down. “I dunno—my optimism’s gotten us places, don’t you think?” With some playful force he dropped his arms around Mikleo’s shoulders to casually hold both him and Alisha in place. 

She wasn’t quite sure how he meant that remark, but she colored a bit just the same. Mikleo broke eye contact with a look somewhere between self-consciousness and annoyance. He didn’t agree, but he didn’t argue, either.

Sorey kissed the top of her head and they returned to silence, this time idle but content as they relaxed in their three-way tangle. Eventually, Alisha started to nod off, but a minute later she was gently roused by Sorey rolling the three of them to the side to lie down properly.

She wiggled onto her back as he set his cheek against her hair, Mikleo settling in close to share her pillow. Their legs were comfortably interwoven and the three of them couldn’t have been much closer, but she found their hands and guided them onto her stomach, hers atop Mikleo’s and Sorey’s atop hers, their fingers slowly lacing together until she couldn’t tell where one’s skin stopped and the next began.

She was normally the first to fall asleep, but Sorey’s light snoring was soon followed by Mikleo’s heavy breathing. Her free hand rubbed Sorey’s thigh in small motions, and then Mikleo’s hip, staving off sleep a little longer to appreciate their touches, their proximities, and their trust. She loved everything about their time spent together, but this simple exchange was one of her favorites. Lying here warm and comfortable and close with the whole night still ahead of them was like a small piece of forever—and being well aware that nothing truly lasted so long, Alisha wanted to take in every minute of it.


End file.
